Battling PTSD
Veteran-alumnus to speak at UCI on the toll of trauma
David J. Morris, University of California, Irvine alumnus, former Marine infantry officer, war correspondent and critically acclaimed author, returns to campus Wednesday, Nov. 30, to discuss “What We Talk About When We Are Talking About PTSD” at 4 p.m. in Humanities Gateway 1030. The event is part of the School of Humanities’ “Documenting War” series.
In his 2015 book, The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Morris shares accounts of people living with PTSD, including himself. In fact, an estimated 30 percent of veterans from the U.S.’s global war on terror struggle with it.
But PTSD’s reach extends beyond soldiers: The disorder also affects their families, friends and co-workers. “The story of the war belongs to the entire country, not just veterans,” Morris says.
A 2009 graduate of UCI’s acclaimed M.F.A. Programs in Writing, he served in Iraq from 2004 to 2007 as a reporter for Salon and the Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, The Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Times and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Morris is also the author of Storm on the Horizon: Khafji – the Battle That Changed the Course of the Gulf War, published in 2004.